Martinez was barely alone for ten minutes after leaving Rick and his people behind. He walked through the woods towards the nearest road, hoping to find another car or vehicle that would work.

It was quiet for a while—now and then he thought about turning back. He missed the noise that having people around brought, missed Ace's group, missed his group. He remembered every joke Mitch made, how Pete would roll his eyes every time. He couldn't believe that they would agree to what the Governor had planned.

Then again, maybe they didn't.

Martinez could survive alone no problem, he'd done it so many times before, but he'd forgotten what it was like to have people around who cared about him. He'd forgotten how good it could be after what the Governor did to him, and he was just losing the bruises from that fight.

Part of him wanted to stay with Ace and her people, but then he remembered what Rick had just done—how far he went with the Claimers. Martinez didn't want to be around long enough to piss him off.

It reminded him of their war, how they never realised what could have happened to them when they attacked the prison. No one ever imagined Rick taking anything that far, but now he knew if Woodbury had ever gotten their hands on the kids, they would have been dealing with a completely different Rick from the one they had gotten. What they received, was nothing.

He wondered how he held it together for so long and how Rick was still willing to negotiate after everything they'd done. He reminded himself it was because they had the upper hand, but as ruthless as Rick could be, they never really stood a chance.

Not only that, but Rick had the skills of the British teenager on his side. With Ace, Woodbury was more screwed than they realised. There was a reason the Governor tried killing her, and her showing up to the peace meeting was just rubbing it in. The Governor was scared of her (not that he admitted it) but the main focus of the shootout was to take her out of the war.

Now Martinez knew the lengths that Ace was willing to go through. The Governor told him that she was the one that killed the five men at the fight club in Woodbury, and Martinez watched her take out one of their own in the prison. But she was just a kid, how could a kid be so threatening? And then he saw her last night, how she was willing to keep the attention on her to save her family, getting her face cut, shooting the man that was beating Daryl. The group had nothing to worry about with her on their side.

Another part of him wished he'd just changed sides. After the first war, Martinez left the Governor and headed back to Woodbury to see what Rick and his people had done with the remaining survivors, only to find that they were gone. No blood, no bullet holes. They'd taken them all back to the prison.

He would not have been offered the same courtesy if he showed up late, so he just went on alone until he found Mitch and Pete. They had a few people around, but they were barely surviving. Martinez used his knowledge of the area to help them, gave them places that the Governor was planning on hitting but they never got around to, and soon enough, he was running the place.

When the Governor showed up in one of the walker pits, he was holding a little girl in his arms. Then two women showed up looking for him, and he couldn't just turn them away, with the way the one looked at him, the mother, turning the Governor away meant that they would go with him. Martinez didn't want that, he wanted them safe, despite Mitch's no dead weight rule. It was going okay for a while, and Brian was helping out on runs.

And then it happened, the Governor brought up the prison and Martinez brushed him off. It wasn't happening. They'd lost so badly last time, getting scared out of the prison with firecrackers while a teenage girl broke their turrets. There was no point in fighting them, even if they needed a more permanent home.

Martinez declined everything the Governor brought up, shaking his head as he kept trying to make point after point. Eventually, the Governor had enough and hit him over the head with a golf clip and kicked him off the RV. Martinez got a few punches in before he could get thrown into the pit of walkers, grabbed his bat and ran.

Shaking his head, he brushed it to the back of his mind. Ace was right, he should've just gone back there and taken him out. Maybe his new family would've killed him, but he might've had the chance to explain what happened and who the Governor was before anyone did anything rash.

Hindsight came in the form of a teenage demolition expert.

A walker growl broke him from his thoughts, and he pulled his bat from his bag to kill it. Stopping behind a tree, he looked around for the walker and saw one following a set of train tracks. As he moved to step out of the cover, his body slammed to a halt when the noise grew.

Shit, he thought. That's a lot of them.

He'd have to backtrack if he was going to get around the herd. As he moved deeper into the trees, he followed the direction of the track back, hoping to cross over when the walkers cleared out. This was all he could do, for now, stay out of earshot and keep himself from getting spotted.

If only things were that easy.

"Hey!"

Martinez turned and frowned, if they had a gun on him then running from the harsh voice would get him shot. There was a man and a woman behind him, neither of them holding their guns up, which made him wish he'd kept going. He recognised the man from Terminus when he was watching them through the fences, and hoped that they were as good as Rick believed they could be.

"What?" Martinez asked, but turned to the side, ready to leave.

"We found your people," the man said, stopping him. "We can take you to them."

How kind of you. Martinez wondered what kind of play this was because they must have known that he didn't want to be there. He just wondered how they'd seen him with the group if none of the group had seen them. Whatever it was they did, they were good at it.

"If you know they're my people then you'll know that I took them there and left," Martinez said.

The woman tilted her head, a concerned expression in her eyes. "You don't want sanctuary?"

"Are you really asking me that in the tone of a cultist?" The woman changed her expression to look confused, and Martinez scoffed. "No, I don't want sanctuary."

"But we accept everyone," the woman said. "We don't want you out here on your own, it isn't safe."

"I know," he said and muttered. "It's starting to feel less and less safe every time you ignore that I want to be alone."

"They're worried about you," the woman said.

"I'm sure they are," he gave a smile. "Did they say that?"

Martinez decided to gloss over the fact that he was their number one enemy because the direction of this conversation meant there was a chance he'd have to go back there and save them.

The man gave a nod. "Yes, the boy did."

Martinez smiled. "In the hat?"

He could see them think for a second, before nodding. Wrong answer. Martinez wanted to keep playing this game, just ask questions and let them lie to him. Something was going to happen at Terminus, or it was happening already and he knew for sure that they needed his saving.

But he had to be smart. They had him outnumbered two to one, and if he said that they were lying, then they might just kill him. As he was thinking of a plan, gunshots started ringing out from the direction of Terminus. The two people shot around, making eye contact with each other in surprise. Maybe he was wrong, he decided, maybe they weren't good at what they did.

"That's them, isn't it?" Martinez questioned.

He could tell by the shocked look on the man's face, the way they both looked at each other when the shooting started, he wasn't supposed to hear that yet. He was supposed to be there.

Instantly, he knew their plan. Get him back to Terminus, and whatever they were doing to Rick and the others was supposed to happen to him as well. Rick had seen something, gotten suspicious, that made them start whatever it was early. In true Rick fashion, it had broken out into a fight, something Martinez should have anticipated.

Martinez smirked. "This wasn't part of the plan, was it?"

The woman turned, understanding his tone, but before she could reach for her gun, Martinez raised the SMG and shot. The next one went into the man's leg; he wanted him alive to question him and find out what was happening, but as he marched forward to grab the man, he heard voices.

"He shot them! Get him!"

Martinez bolted.

He cursed himself for not considering that they'd have more people waiting, for getting too cocky. They were good at this—they'd done it before at least. But now he knew that they were being watched before he sent the others into Terminus. They had a system, and he didn't have the time to work out what it was. Normally, he was on the other end of an ambush, he should've realised that it was happening to him.

His gun was still in his hands as he ran, and he made his way deeper into the woods because his gunfire would've distracted some of the herd, drawing it his way. The shooting at Terminus was unrelenting, though, and Martinez had to wonder why it was taking so many bullets to kill six people.

Maybe they were alive—well, that had to be alive. What he meant was that maybe they were winning, holding Terminus off with the small amount of people that they had. He wouldn't be surprised, they had done it before.

Lungs burning, he pushed himself to run as far as he could with the shouting still behind him. He was glad it was behind him, at least far enough that any walkers would head that way before realising that he was there. He needed them to keep making more noise than him, keeping the attention and maybe getting caught up and dying to the herd.

A man jumped out in front of him, and Martinez stopped and shot. Fuck, he thought. He needed to stop making so much noise, but without knowing how many people were after him, he needed any advantage he could get. This was the only way he lived long enough to get back to Terminus.

He tried to count the footsteps that he heard barreling behind him, but it was all too much and every sound melded into one as the leaves crunched beneath his feet. Where was Ace when he needed her? Adrenaline pumped through his veins and his mind was buzzing with anticipation.

A small part of him wasn't worried, he'd been in worse situations before, escaped worse things. He just needed to play it smart, remember what he would've done when he worked for the Governor, and he used that information to his advantage to work out what their next moves would be.

He guessed that they were unpractised outside the walls. Whatever happened to Rick, to Ace, that was premeditated; they offered people safety and very few people must've turned it down. But him—he left, he was the anomaly and they were just as lost as he was in the new territory.

Martinez stopped behind a tree, gun in his hand. When the footsteps grew close enough, he kicked his leg out and tripped the person over. He grabbed the man before he could reach for his weapons, and aimed at the others who had been following.

"He's got Chuck!"

"Let him go!"

Martinez pointed his gun at him, and yelled, "Back off!"

When the men lowered their weapons, one of them raised a hand to keep him calm. They didn't guess his plan. Martinez swung the SMG in their direction and let out a burst of bullets that cut across their chests. Then he brought it back to Chuck's head and shot.

Martinez didn't hang around, he took Chuck's weapon and ran. There were more, more people coming after him, but he needed to get as far away as he could to decide what he needed to do.

When Martinez put some distance between him and Terminus, he stopped and panted. His mind played with the idea of leaving them, getting as far away from that hellhole as he could before more of those people caught up to him. But he couldn't.

Rick and his people were only in Terminus because he didn't have the guts to go back and tell his people about the Governor, and cared more about himself than the people who built a new life for themselves at the prison. Now he was running away again, and leaving the people who saved him to die.

He couldn't do it again.

Not after all they'd done for each other.

He could hear people yelling further in the distance, but he didn't know how many there were. There couldn't be too much more, they wouldn't send this many people after him because they needed the help if something happened on their end with Rick.

Running and hiding was his only hope until he could get the upper hand and make his way back. He just hoped that everyone would still be alive when he got there, that with how long the shooting lasted maybe they were still in some kind of fight or hiding.

He didn't think they killed Rick's group, because if that were the case then the people sent out to get him would've just shot him, and not tried tricking him into going back with them. No, they wanted people for a different reason, and he didn't have the energy to keep up with whatever they were doing.

Martinez stopped when he crossed a new set of tracks, happy to see that he hadn't been followed by a herd. Maybe the herd had followed him, but they would've headed in the direction of his shots and he was too far away from that area by that point.

He took a second to get his bearings before a voice startled him. "Hold it there."

A woman stepped out in front of him. She had short grey hair and a gun aimed in his direction. She looked very calm considering the situation, but in all fairness, she had enough control to catch him off guard, so he understood her confidence. Well, he had a good run.

"You have my people," she said. "What are you going to do to them?"

Her people? Martinez couldn't help but feel confused, because as far as he was aware, she had his people. The people at Terminus knew he had done nothing uncalled for; they were too malicious. It couldn't have been a coincidence that she was asking him about her people on the same day he dropped Rick's group off at Terminus, which meant that she wasn't from Terminus herself.

Now that he thought about it, he started recognising the woman before him. "You're from the prison, aren't you?"

The woman frowned, confused by the question. No one in Terminus would know about the prison, which is why he was certain the question would put doubt in her head that he was one of them if he knew so much about her.

"How the hell would you know that?" She snapped.

"Because I'm not from Terminus," Martinez said, his hands still in the air because the look in her eye and his experience with Rick's people told him that she should shoot at any given chance. "I'm not one of them."

Consideration was shown in a stern face. Mainly he could see the frustration bubbling to the surface because her people were in danger and she was wasting her time talking to him. She was wasting his time, too, because, for whatever reason, he wanted to help her group. He just needed to get that point across without her working out who he was, and the things he'd done.

"How can I trust you?"

"Because I took some of your people there today," Martinez said. "And then I left."

Her nose wrinkled, and she waved the gun at him. "Who?"

"Rick, Ace, Carl, Michonne, Daryl and Isaac," he said. "I dropped them off there a little while ago, and I left. Not long after that, some of those pricks came out and started hunting me down. I guessed something was wrong, so I've been trying to get back to them."

The woman nodded. "We captured one of their people, they were talking about Carl and Michonne. That's how we knew they were bad."

Martinez wanted to ask who the other half of we was in this scenario, and why they weren't with her. He assumed it was more people from the prison group, but something had happened that meant the woman had to do this alone.

"I'm pretty sure they need help, or there would've been more commotion there. They shot for a while and it quietened down," Martinez said, and blew out a whistle. "They offered for me to go in there with them but they didn't want me there so I left."

"Why?" The woman became apprehensive again, aiming her gun more readily.

Martinez's eyes flickered down. "I'll say but you have to promise not to shoot me."

"Say it."

He gave a nod. "I was with the Governor for the first war. He almost killed me a week ago and used my people to attack the prison the other day. I found Ace shot and I've been helping her find her people, dropped them off here today. She would've died if I hadn't found her when I did."

"How can I believe you?" She asked again.

"Because Rick would've killed me if I was lying." He did not doubt in his mind what he did to the Claimers.

The woman gave a slow nod and lowered the gun. "You're right about that one. Besides, even if you're lying you aren't my biggest problem right now."

"Agreed," Martinez lowered his hands again, and gave her a nod. "We can help each other, get your people back. You can even hold a gun on me if you want so long as we get them out and safe before anything happens to them."

"That's if something hasn't happened to them already," she said. "Is there anyone else still after you?"

"Yeah, two or three more guys," Martinez said, glancing back over his shoulder. "They should be following this trail."

"We'll wait for them, catch them by surprise. Don't let them reach for a radio, or they'll know we're coming."

"Yes ma'am," he realised when he said ma'am that he didn't know her name, and found that Ace was right. There were never really good situations anymore to ask. "I'm Martinez, by the way. Caesar Martinez."

"Carol," she said, ducking behind the bush.

Martinez lowered himself to the ground beside her, and they waited.

Carol waited for the three men to pass before she stood up, aiming her gun and shooting them before he even had a chance to pull out his gun. When he heard a gasp, and crunching in the leaves, Martinez spun. He whipped out his gun and shot before the man could fire into Carol's back.

Carol looked over her shoulder to the body, and then at Martinez. "You said three."

"I miscounted," was his excuse. "They were trying to kill me, give me a break."

"Well it isn't over yet," Carol said. "We need to move before the herd comes."

"Tell me about it," he agreed, and they took off.

He and Carol walked in silence for the most part. She was holding a bag that he only really noticed after they killed the last of the Terminus members. He assumed guns, like the bag they got from the claimers, and decided not to question it.

If there was one thing he was certain of, it was that she had a plan, there was something in her mind that she could've done on her own, and he raked his mind wondering how they'd ever storm the place. It wasn't too full, when he saw, and the fences weren't very built up which meant that they could cut right through.

The issue came with how open the area was because there was no way that they were getting all the way down to the buildings before someone spotted them. Even worse, with all the shooting that wouldn't draw the herd to this place, he wondered how long they'd even have before the fences came down. They were easy to break, like the ones at the prison.

"I don't know how the hell we're getting into this place," Martinez said. "Especially not with a herd heading that way."

"Yeah, I saw," she said. "I have a plan, when we find out what's happening there, we force our way in."

She adjusted the strap to a bag on her arm, and they kept walking. As long as she had a plan. Because Martinez was kicking himself he couldn't think of anything they could use to help. In all honesty, he was still in his run-away-and-let-them-fend-for-themselves phase, but he assumed Carol would've shot him if he tried to bail now.

It shocked him when they stopped at a walker, and Carol took the time to pull out her knife and kill it before it had the chance to do anything. They probably would've been able to walk past. Martinez made a move to continue to Terminus when he realised that she wasn't following him.

When he looked back over his shoulder, he saw that Carol had taken out her knife, knelt and started cutting at the walker. The smell made his stomach do a flip, and he couldn't even think of a plan that would involve something this disgusting—maybe Isaac had a point.

"Have you ever done this before?" Carol asked.

"Done what before?" He frowned like there was any answer to involve something like this.

He almost yelled out in horror when Carol started putting her hands into the gutted walker, gathering the blood and rubbing it into the blanket she was using to protect her clothes. He was now glad he understood what the protective blanket was for.

"The smell tricks the walkers," she explained, "makes them think you're dead."

"You've done this before?" He frowned.

"No," Carol shook her head. "Ace and Michonne have, that's how I know it works."

Gross. But now Martinez was starting to realise the kinds of things Ace had done for her people, the things that she would do. He was starting to get it now, he understood that she would do anything.

And now he had to, even if it meant rubbing something that was going to kill him all over his body.

"Come on, hurry up." Carol stood up from the body, nodding down to the body. Martinez hesitated, but then sighed and kneeled. He'd come this far for them, what was a little extra? "Rub some mud in your face after, it might put you in question long enough to get past the people."

"Yeah," he cringed when he felt the walker, cold and warm at the same time from cooking in the sun. "Whatever you say."

It was a horrible feeling, an even worse smell. If he'd eaten anything that day it would've threatened to come up. Isaac probably would've ended his own life if he had to do anything like this, and he saw where he was coming from now that he was experiencing his biggest fear first-hand.

"Who else are you with?" Martinez asked, out of nowhere. "How come they aren't doing this shit with us?"

"Tyreese," she said. "I assume you know him from Woodbury."

"That bastard's alive?" Martinez raised his brows, nodding as he rubbed the mud into his face. "Jesus."

"We found one of their men, and caught him," Carol said. "Tyreese is there taking care of Judith."

"The baby?" Carol gave a nod, and Martinez asked. "Well, you killed that guy, right? Don't want someone like that around a kid."

"No," she said.

"No?"

"I should have," she said. "Tyreese can't do it anymore."

Martinez frowned. Oh great. "How come?"

"Some of the stuff that happened, at the prison and after," she said. "I'm responsible for most of it. I should have taken him out, but Tyreese doesn't think anyone has to die today."

"l hate to break it to him," Martinez said. "We should do this quickly if we gotta worry about getting back in time. All it takes is one second for him to slip up, besides, if Rick finds out his baby is alive and loses her the same day he's going to burn that place to the ground."

"He won't have to," Carol shook her head. "That's part of the plan."

It didn't take much longer for them to get to the fences, to see the red brick buildings just as quiet as they had been before. Well, that's what he thought until he saw the people down at the fences taking out walkers that had come from the herd. Still, less walkers and people than he expected to see.

"Here," Carol said.

She crouched down by the fence and aimed the gun towards Terminus, and all Martinez could do was wait. Carol had the scope, the sight, and a better view to find out where they were or what was going on. If she didn't see anything, they'd have to change the plan and storm the place until they found them.

He waited for maybe a minute before she pulled a hand from the gun and pointed, her eye still looking through the scope. "There."

Martinez expected more of an explanation, for her to say something else, but nothing came. Instead, he looked at her, followed her gaze, looking down into the clearing of Terminus, and he frowned.

"What the fuck?"

I'm not gonna lie, if I start slowing down on chapters it is because the dissertation is killing me. I'm in the lab 9-5 and still working on analysing data when I get home so just letting you know that I have a lot on right now.

Anyway, hope you enjoyed the Martinez chapter and let me know what you thought :)